Monday, October 27, 2008
Coffee and corn but no time to write
It´s cosecha time in the comarca. I´ve been keeping pretty busy. I´ll be out in the city for the election and hopefully have time to update more. There just aint time. I miss you all so much!
Friday, October 10, 2008
Ti tara ju!
Translation: I have a house! Gilberto constructed my house solo in about a week. I helped with what I could... but I m not a very good helper. I ve been cooking. I made cornbread last night! It tasted great, but looked more like scrambled eggs. I have been making some great soups with lentles and whole grain rice and lots of veggies (all I have to bring in from outside...) I did harvest the first fruit from my somewhat idle garden... a 4 inch cucumber. The members of the grain group came over the other day and had a good laugh. - a 4 inch cucumber for 30 men!- they laughed. Usually, I see the humor in situations like this, like the beans that grow better in the grime behind the kitchen sink than in my garden, but on that particular day it took significant effort to laugh and not cry.
I must admit that today I am not in much of a mood to write, nor would it be a very good idea. It was a long, hard, humbling week. But I want to jot one of those crazy moments that I had when I know what I m listening to is profound, but I am unable to understand why.
I mustered up the ganas to talk to Benida (the woman from the previous entry who asked for money) two days ago. I have been pasearing to every house in the community to let them know about the meeting that will take place next week with my boss. So I walked up to her house as the fog closed in around our hill and mist started to turn to rain. She s sitting outside her hut, picking lice from her grandkids hair. I sit next to her and we exchange the usual pleasantries. She comments on a bandaid I have on my thumb.
-What happened?- she asks
-I cut myslef.- It s a lie. It s from degraining corn, a testiment of how sensitive my hands still are. But I have pena to tell them the truth.
- But Bedi, You must be carefull. Blood is money.
-Blood is money?
-Si. Even a little drop... a little drop is like $50.
-Ah- I say. - So I should have saved it! In a little cup, or a bag...- I m joking now, but Benida doesnt laugh.
- Once,- she says, - I spent $150 on blood.
Finally I shut up and let her talk. Her daughter, at 16, was diagnosed with what Benida described as stomach cancer, but what I imagine was cervical, or ovarian, because the doctors explained that she would not have children in the future.
Benida told the story in a dry, removed way that let me imagine what this Ngabe woman had experienced in the cold, forgein environment of a hospital that may have as well been in a forgein country. She barely speaks spanish. The doctors told her that her daughter would die if they did not operate, but to operate they would need 3 pints of blood, at $50 each. They told her she must go to the bank to buy the blood. She left crying from her daughters room and walked through the hospital wondering where this bank was where one buys blood. Finally a hospital guard pointed her in the right direction. When she arrived, whoever was selling the blood told her, - yes, for $150 your daughter might get better... but for $200 it s almost guarenteed.-
Anyway. I feel like I{ve had verbal diareah all day. and I dont have much ganas to write. But... I do want to thank all of your for your letters, emails and boxes! Wow! Amanda! I ate chocolate chip cookies walking through the rainforest while watching morpho butterflies flitting around like they do. I had this debate: which are cooler? Gluten free cookies or morpho butterflies. I still cant decide!cookies taste better! It{s so great to hear from all of you!
Friday, October 3, 2008
Thursday, October 2, 2008
Some journal entries
A PERSPECTIVE GIVER:
I´m a pretty tough person. Ok, not always, but I can be. I have raced so many body crushing 1500 M in my life I could never count. I´ve walked 500 miles across Spain in a month despite shin splints, falling arches, blisters and perpetually swollen ankles. My resume is short, but neither of my claims to toughness were easy. Having that said, carrying the lumber for my house up a steep, slippery, endless trail through the stifling heat and humidity of a Panamanian forset was the most physically challanging thing I have ever done. I made four trips, each taking more thatn an hour to complete. The trail is steeper than taking stadium stairs by two, and its muddy and covered in vines so that you trip going down and slip coming up. We hade invited 8 grown men to help carry the wood, and I had provided food. One came, one sent his 12-year-old son adn the rest... MIA. ALong the trail two youn girls, both under the age of 13 asked if we had chicha (juice made from corn). We told them that we did, in fact, have enough for 8 grown men. So they joined our ¨junta¨. They each made 3 trips carrying about 60lbs, just as much as me, and faster. When all was said and done the girls recieved heaping bowls of rice, beans adn chicken, and juice. But here is what made me want to cry: 2 pre-teen girls would want to do what for me was the hardest thing I have done in my life for the promise of some corn juice.
TWO VERBAL SNAPSHOTS:
My two little sisters are huddling under the overhanging zinc roof, giggling and pushing eachother under the streams of water that funnel down from the sky. They are so beautiful in their red and navy nagwas up against the wood pannels of the house: grey streaked with floresent green moss. I want to frame their smiling faces throught he doorway and over the hand crank Singer where Aida sits sewing. But my point and shoot would never blur the foreground and background the way I want, and the secound I take out my camera the smiles change, the moment is lost and I´m nothing more than a tourist.
----------
Little Lilly is walking around with small dead sparrow in her hand. She shakes it about to the tune of happy, God-praising evangelical rock and its limp head wiggles like a noodle. Mikeal deftly popped it out of the mango tree with a home-made slingshot and soon Paula will pluck and fry it up on top of white rice. Until then, 3-year-old Lilly fingers its soft down and smiles at her toy.
QUÉ PESADA
¨Señora Bedi¨she called me. No one has ever called me señora. It made it feel like there was so much distance between us. It´s worse than being called Gringa. I was carrying my secound load of 50lbs of rice from the road to my host families store. The woman who addressed me is a friend. I have spent much time in her house, she sharing what she has- rice with a chicken foot; and me eating what she has offered, also a sacrife. She has a wonderful sense of humor and I love the way she takes my hand to shake it but then doesn´t let go. But my gut tells me this meeting is different. It´s a sixth senth I´ve developed for guessing when people want something of me.
She starts talking. ¨I´ve been afraid to ask,¨ she tells me. But there is nothing else she can do. There is no food in the house and she needs to buy clothes for her grandchildren so they can go to school. Could I please lend her $10? I explain that I can not lend her money because I can not lend money to everyone who asks, or to everyone who needs to buy food. ¨But Bedi,¨ she assures me, ¨I will pay you back as soon as....¨ something. ¨
´
¨Then five, just five so I can feed my family. ¨ She says this holding up the five fingers of her right hand. ¨Just five.¨ I shake my head again but I´m starting to loose my composure. She is one of my favorite people in the community.
Even though I am growing wearier of pleas for money, or loans, or cell phone minutes, I know that I, in her place would do everything I could to feed my grandkids. Especially if I considered the gringa a friend and someone with whom I had shared as much as I possibly could. It´s enough to make me want to stop going visiting from house to house. I´m literally indebted to every family here, even though I am constantly reiterating that I do not Pasear for food, but to pass time and make friends with the community.
¨Bueno, bueno.¨ She says, letting go of my hand. ¨Fine.¨ She isn´t looking at me now. ¨Jatuita Bedi.¨ Goodbye.
As I walk away she calls after me. ¨For this I come only to you. Only to you.¨ I have no idea how to respond, so I say nothing.
Later as I return home with the load, I see her standing outside my family´s store talking to my host mom. ¨you arrived.¨ I comment, determined not to treat her any differently after the akward episode. ¨Sí, I arrived.¨ she says. ¨I arrived to my house crying.¨ Again I am left without response. I don´t know if she is making light of the situation or if her biting humor has turned against me. So I shrug and walk into the house. Somehow I feel even heavier, despite having just thrown down the 50lbs of rice I´ve carried for 45 minutes.
I´m a pretty tough person. Ok, not always, but I can be. I have raced so many body crushing 1500 M in my life I could never count. I´ve walked 500 miles across Spain in a month despite shin splints, falling arches, blisters and perpetually swollen ankles. My resume is short, but neither of my claims to toughness were easy. Having that said, carrying the lumber for my house up a steep, slippery, endless trail through the stifling heat and humidity of a Panamanian forset was the most physically challanging thing I have ever done. I made four trips, each taking more thatn an hour to complete. The trail is steeper than taking stadium stairs by two, and its muddy and covered in vines so that you trip going down and slip coming up. We hade invited 8 grown men to help carry the wood, and I had provided food. One came, one sent his 12-year-old son adn the rest... MIA. ALong the trail two youn girls, both under the age of 13 asked if we had chicha (juice made from corn). We told them that we did, in fact, have enough for 8 grown men. So they joined our ¨junta¨. They each made 3 trips carrying about 60lbs, just as much as me, and faster. When all was said and done the girls recieved heaping bowls of rice, beans adn chicken, and juice. But here is what made me want to cry: 2 pre-teen girls would want to do what for me was the hardest thing I have done in my life for the promise of some corn juice.
TWO VERBAL SNAPSHOTS:
My two little sisters are huddling under the overhanging zinc roof, giggling and pushing eachother under the streams of water that funnel down from the sky. They are so beautiful in their red and navy nagwas up against the wood pannels of the house: grey streaked with floresent green moss. I want to frame their smiling faces throught he doorway and over the hand crank Singer where Aida sits sewing. But my point and shoot would never blur the foreground and background the way I want, and the secound I take out my camera the smiles change, the moment is lost and I´m nothing more than a tourist.
----------
Little Lilly is walking around with small dead sparrow in her hand. She shakes it about to the tune of happy, God-praising evangelical rock and its limp head wiggles like a noodle. Mikeal deftly popped it out of the mango tree with a home-made slingshot and soon Paula will pluck and fry it up on top of white rice. Until then, 3-year-old Lilly fingers its soft down and smiles at her toy.
QUÉ PESADA
¨Señora Bedi¨she called me. No one has ever called me señora. It made it feel like there was so much distance between us. It´s worse than being called Gringa. I was carrying my secound load of 50lbs of rice from the road to my host families store. The woman who addressed me is a friend. I have spent much time in her house, she sharing what she has- rice with a chicken foot; and me eating what she has offered, also a sacrife. She has a wonderful sense of humor and I love the way she takes my hand to shake it but then doesn´t let go. But my gut tells me this meeting is different. It´s a sixth senth I´ve developed for guessing when people want something of me.
She starts talking. ¨I´ve been afraid to ask,¨ she tells me. But there is nothing else she can do. There is no food in the house and she needs to buy clothes for her grandchildren so they can go to school. Could I please lend her $10? I explain that I can not lend her money because I can not lend money to everyone who asks, or to everyone who needs to buy food. ¨But Bedi,¨ she assures me, ¨I will pay you back as soon as....¨ something. ¨
´
¨Then five, just five so I can feed my family. ¨ She says this holding up the five fingers of her right hand. ¨Just five.¨ I shake my head again but I´m starting to loose my composure. She is one of my favorite people in the community.
Even though I am growing wearier of pleas for money, or loans, or cell phone minutes, I know that I, in her place would do everything I could to feed my grandkids. Especially if I considered the gringa a friend and someone with whom I had shared as much as I possibly could. It´s enough to make me want to stop going visiting from house to house. I´m literally indebted to every family here, even though I am constantly reiterating that I do not Pasear for food, but to pass time and make friends with the community.
¨Bueno, bueno.¨ She says, letting go of my hand. ¨Fine.¨ She isn´t looking at me now. ¨Jatuita Bedi.¨ Goodbye.
As I walk away she calls after me. ¨For this I come only to you. Only to you.¨ I have no idea how to respond, so I say nothing.
Later as I return home with the load, I see her standing outside my family´s store talking to my host mom. ¨you arrived.¨ I comment, determined not to treat her any differently after the akward episode. ¨Sí, I arrived.¨ she says. ¨I arrived to my house crying.¨ Again I am left without response. I don´t know if she is making light of the situation or if her biting humor has turned against me. So I shrug and walk into the house. Somehow I feel even heavier, despite having just thrown down the 50lbs of rice I´ve carried for 45 minutes.
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